Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Part 79

DESCRIPTION.--The head of the Indian wild boar differs considerably from the German one. Sir Walter Elliot says: "The head of the former is larger and more pointed, and the plane of the forehead straight, while it is concave in the European, the ears of the former are small and pointed; in the latter larger and not so erect. The Indian is altogether a more active-looking animal, the German has a stronger, heavier appearance."

Jerdon, who has in some measure adopted these remarks, adds that the tail is more tufted, and the malar beard is well marked.

The colour of the full-grown animal is brownish-black, spa.r.s.ely clad with black hair; the ears are scantily covered with black hairs externally, but more abundantly inside. A crest of stiff black bristles extends from the occiput over the neck and shoulders and down the back; the bristles of the throat and breast are reversed, growing forwards instead of backwards, the tips being sometimes white; the limbs, which are well covered with bristly hair outside, are nearly naked within, and the tail is short, slightly hairy, and with a flat tip fringed with lateral bristles set like the barbs of a feather. The young are more hairy, and are striped with brown and fulvous yellow.

SIZE.--Head and body, about 5 feet; tail, 1 foot; height, from 30 to 36 inches.

This species is so well known to residents in India, not only from personal experience but from the numerous accounts of its chase--one of the most exciting of Indian field sports--that it would be almost superfluous to add anything more to the already redundant porcine literature, so I will confine myself to the habits of the animal in the jungles. It is gregarious, living in herds, usually called _sounders_, the derivation of which has often puzzled me as well as others; but McMaster says it is to be found in Bailey's English Dictionary, of which the fifteenth edition was published in 1753 as (among hunters) _a herd or company of swine_. An old boar is generally the chief, but occasionally he gets driven from the herd, and wanders solitary and morose, and is in such a case an awkward customer to tackle. An old boar of this kind is generally a match for a tiger; in fact few tigers, unless young and inexperienced, would attack one.

I have known two instances of tigers being killed by boars; one happened a few miles from the station of Seonee, to which place we had the animal carried. (See Appendix C.) On another occasion, whilst on tour in the district, a deputation from a distant village came into my camp to beg of me to visit them, and shoot a large boar which had taken possession of a small rocky hill, and from it made his nightly forays into their rice fields, and was given to attacking those who approached him. I went and got the boar out and shot him, but lost a tiger, which also sneaked out and broke through a line of beaters; these two were the sole occupants of this small isolated knoll, and lived evidently on terms of mutual respect. The boar was the largest I had ever seen or killed, but, as the sun was getting fierce, and I had far to ride to camp, I regret I left him to the villagers without taking any measurements. It is allowable to shoot hogs in some hilly parts of India where riding is out of the question, otherwise the shooting of a boar in riding country is deservedly looked upon as the crime of vulpecide would be in Leicesters.h.i.+re--a thing not to be spoken of. The boar possesses a singular amount of courage; he is probably the most courageous of all animals, much more so than the tiger, but unless irritated he is not p.r.o.ne to attack at first sight, except in a few cases of solitary individuals, like the one above mentioned. I was once rather ludicrously and very uncomfortably held at bay by a boar who covered the retreat of his family. One evening, after dismissing my _amlah_, I took up a shot gun, and, ordering the elephant to follow, strolled across some fields to a low scrub-covered hill where I thought I might pick up a few partridges or a peafowl before dusk. On entering the bush which skirted the base of the hill I was suddenly brought up by a savage grunt, and there in front of me stood an old boar with his bristles up, whilst the rest of his family scampered off into the thicket.

I remembered Shakespeare's (the poet's--not the gallant s.h.i.+kari general's) opinion:--

"To fly the boar before the boar pursues Were to incense the boar to follow us,"

and therefore stood my ground, undergoing the stern scrutiny of my bristly friend, who c.o.c.ked his head on one side and eyed me in a doubtful sort of way, whilst he made up his mind whether to go for me or not, whilst I on my part cogitated on the probable effect at close quarters of two barrels of No. 6 shot. However, he backed a bit, and then sidled to the rear for a few paces, when he brought up with another grunt, but, finding I had not moved, he finally turned round and dashed after his spouse and little ones. (See also Appendix C.)

Colonel (now General) Shakespear winds up a thrilling account of a fight with one with the following paragraph, which will give a good idea of the endurance of these creatures:--

"There he was with a broken spear in his withers, the shaft sticking up a foot and a-half from the blade, knocking over a horseman and wounding his horse; receiving two bullets--ten to the pound each--the first in his neck and throat, a very deadly part in all animals; the second breaking his jaw, and fired within a few feet of the muzzle; making good his charge, cutting down his enemy like gra.s.s, wounding him, knocking over a second man armed with a spear, defying the dogs, and then, when in the act of charging again, shot to the brain and dying without a groan."

Although I had not intended giving any s.h.i.+kar stories, I cannot resist quoting one from General McMaster's 'Notes on Jerdon.' He writes:--

"In further proof of the savage courage of a boar I may mention the following instance which is recorded in the 'Hunt Annals' of the 25th December, 1869. A large _unwounded_ boar had succeeded in getting into some thick bushes. On being bullied by a terrier he charged the nearest hunter, and ripped the horse very badly. Two other sportsmen who were not riding then tried to tempt the boar to charge, one by firing No. 10 or quail shot into the bush, the other by riding a camel into it. The last was successful, for, charging straight at the camel's legs (receiving some shot in his face on his way) he completely routed the whole arrangement, knocked over and ripped the camel, which broke its leg in falling, and then made away across the fields; he was followed and twice speared, but he was as cunning as courageous, and managed to give his pursuers the slip in some long gra.s.s and thick bushes. This boar's savage charge at the camel was within a few yards of all of us, for every one was trying to entice him to come forth; after his headlong rush out of the bush he reared so upright in his attempt to reach his clumsy disturber, which was quite frantic from deadly fear, that he succeeded in ripping it in what in a horse would be termed the stifle joint. The poor brute rolled over in its agony, smashed one of its legs in the fall, and was of course shot. Luckily the rider, one of the best known among the Nagpore Hunt, was not hurt."

I believe a wild pig will charge at anything when enraged. I had an elephant who, though perfectly staunch with tigers, would bolt from a wild boar. The period of gestation is four months, and it produces twice a year; it is supposed to live to the age of twenty years, and, as its fecundity is proverbial, we might reasonably suppose that these animals would be continually on the increase, but they have many enemies, whilst young, amongst the felines, and the sows frequently fall a prey to tigers and panthers. Occasionally I have come across in the jungles a heap of branches and gra.s.s, and at first could not make out what it was, but the Gonds soon informed me that these heaps were the nests or lairs of the wild pigs, and they invariably turned them over to look for squeakers. These are funny little things, of a tortoisesh.e.l.l colour, being striped reddish yellow and dark brown. There is an old writer on Indian field sports, Williamson, who makes some correct observations on the habits of the wild hog, although much in his book (now, I fancy, out of print) is open to question. He writes: "The wild hog delights in cultivated situations, but he will not remain where water is not at hand, in which he may, un.o.bserved, quench his thirst and wallow at his ease; nor will he resort for a second season to a spot which does not afford ample cover, whether of heavy gra.s.s or of under-wood jungle, within a certain distance, for him to fly to in case of molestation, and especially to serve as a retreat during the hot season, as otherwise he would find no shelter. The sugar-cane is his great delight, both as being his favourite food and as affording a high, impervious, and unfrequented situation. These hogs commit great devastation, especially the breeding sows, which not only devour, but cut the canes for litter, and throw them up into little huts, which they do with much art, leaving a small entrance which they stop up at pleasure.

Sows never quit their young pigs without completely shutting them up. This is, indeed, requisite only for a few days, as the young brood may be seen following the mother at a round pace when not more than a week or ten days old." The fields of _urhur_ or _ruhur dal_ (_Caja.n.u.s Indicus_) also afford good shelter to pigs. They feed chiefly at night, and in Central India numbers are shot by native s.h.i.+karies in moonlight nights over water and favourite crops or in particular runs. Many castes of Hindus, who would turn with abhorrence from the village pig, will not scruple to eat the flesh of the wild boar. On the whole it is probably a cleaner feeder, but it will not hesitate to devour carrion if it should come across a dead animal in its wanderings.

NO. 435. SUS ANDAMANENSIS.

_The Andaman Island Pig_.

HABITAT.--Andaman islands; Nicobars (?)

DESCRIPTION.--Much smaller than the last. "The concavity of the cheeks in front of the orbit deeply concave." Tail short, a mere tubercle in fact; the body well clad with somewhat s.h.a.ggy black hair, probably allied to _Sus Papuensis_.

Dr. Gray was of opinion (_see_ his article on the _Suidae_, 'P. Z.

S.' 1868) that the skull of this species is more allied to the _Babirussa_ than any others of the pigs, the front of the canines being rather more produced than in other species, but not nearly so much so as in _Babirussa_.

NO. 436. SUS MOUPINENSIS.

HABITAT.--Thibet.

A description of this, which I have not by me at present, will be found in Professor Milne-Edwards's 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,'

p. 377.

_GENUS PORCULA_.

Head conical, moderate; ears small, erect, hairy; cheeks without any tubercles; tail very short, rudimentary; cutting teeth 6/6, the two upper front largest, the lateral lower small; intermaxillary moderate, not produced; canines small, scarcely elevated above the other teeth, the upper one rather spread out, but not reflexed; premolars, 4--4/4--4 (_Gray_); molars, 3--3/3--3; the fourth toe on all the feet small and unequal. Jerdon observes: "This genus, it will be remarked, makes an approach to the American peccaries in the non-excerted canines, the short tail, and the small fourth toe."

Hodgson's dental formula shows one premolar less, viz. teeth: 6/6, 1--1/1--1, 6--6/6--6.

NO. 437. PORCULA SALVANIA.

_The Pigmy Hog of the Saul Forests_ (_Jerdon' s No. 216_).

NATIVE NAMES.--_Sano-banel_, Nepalese; _Chota-suar_, Hindi.

HABITAT.--The Saul forests of the Sikim and Nepal Terai.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Porcula Salvania_.]

DESCRIPTION.--According to Mr. Hodgson "the pigmy hog is about the size of a large hare, and extremely resembles both in form and size a young pig of the ordinary wild kind of about a month old, except in its dark and unstriped pelage. The likeness of the limbs and members to those of the common hog is so close that every purpose of general description of the pigmy hog is served by pointing to that resemblance, desiring only that heed should be taken by the observer of the shorter jaws, and eye consequently placed midway between the snout and ear; of the much shorter tail, nude, straight, and not extending so far as the bristles of the rump, and lastly of the smallness of the inner hind toe. The ears also are quite nude, and the abdominal surface of the neck, as well as the insides of the limbs and the belly, are nearly so, but the upper and lateral external parts are covered thickly with bristles, even longer and more abundant than those of the wild or tame hog--save upon the ridge of the neck, where the common hog has more or less of, and generally a conspicuous mane, but the pigmy hog little or none"--"the colour of the animal is a black brown, shaded vaguely with dirty amber or rusty red."

SIZE.--Head and body, from 18 to 20 inches; height, 8 to 10 inches; weight, 7 to 10 lbs.

This little animal, according to Hodgson's account of it (a most interesting one, which will be found in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xvi. May 1847), seems to have the disposition of the peccary as well as the resemblance; it goes, he says, in herds, and the males fearlessly attack intruders, "charging and cutting the naked legs of their human or other attackers with a speed that baffles the eyesight, and a spirit which their straight sharp laniaries renders really perplexing, if not dangerous."

RUMINANTIA--THE RUMINANTS.

These differ materially from the foregoing section of the Artiodactyla by the construction of their digestive organs. Instead of the food being masticated and pa.s.sed at once into the stomach, each mouthful is but slightly bruised and pa.s.sed into the paunch, whence at leisure it is regurgitated into the mouth to be chewed.

For such an operation the machinery is of course more complicated than in other animals, and I must therefore attempt to describe briefly and as clearly as I can the construction of the ruminating stomach. Taking the ox as a typical specimen, we find four well-defined chambers varying in size. The first of these is the rumen or paunch, in which the unmasticated food is stored; it is a large sac partly bent on itself, and narrowing towards its junction with the oesophagus or gullet, and the entrance into the second chamber. It is lined with a mucous membrane, which is covered with a pile or villous surface, and this membrane is what is sold in butchers' shops as tripe. From this bag (the paunch) in the act of rumination a certain portion of the food is ejected into the second chamber, which is termed the reticulum (i.e. a little net) from the peculiar arrangement of its inner or mucous surface, which is lined with a network of shallow hexagonal cells. The functions of this receptacle are probably the forming of the food into a bolus, and by a spasmodic contraction the forcing of it back through the gullet into the mouth for mastication. Here it is well chewed, and, being thoroughly mixed with saliva pa.s.ses back; on being swallowed in a soft pulpy state it pa.s.ses the groove or valve communicating with the chamber from which it issued, and goes straight into the psalterium or manyplies, as the third chamber is called. This is globular, but most of its interior is filled up with folds like the leaves of a book, more or less unequal. It is not quite clear what the peculiar functions of this chamber are, but the semi-liquid food, pa.s.sing through it, goes into the proper stomach (abomasum or reed) and is here acted upon by the gastric juice. Professor Garrod thus describes the probable order of events in the act of rumination: "The paunch contracts, and in so doing forces some of the food into the honeycomb bag, where it is formed into a bolus by the movement of its walls, and then forced into the gullet, from which by a reverse action it reaches the mouth, where it is chewed and mixed with the saliva until it becomes quite pulpy, whereupon it is again swallowed.

But now, because it is soft and semi-fluid, it does not devaricate the walls of the groove communicating with the manyplies, and so, continuing on along its tubular interior, it finds its way direct into the third stomach, most of it filtering between the membrous laminae on its way to the fourth stomach, where it becomes acted on by the gastric juice. After the remasticated food has reached the manyplies, the groove in the reticulum is pushed open by a fresh bolus, and so the process is repeated until the food consumed has all pa.s.sed on towards the abomasum or true digestive stomach."

The ruminants are peculiar also in their dent.i.tion; in the so-called true ruminants there are no incisors or cutting teeth in the upper jaw, but the teeth of the lower jaw are opposed to a hard callous pad; the herbage is cropped by being nipped between these teeth and the pad, and detached by an upward motion; in some few, such as the musk deer, Chinese water deer and the rib-faced deer or muntjac the upper canines exist, and are largely developed.

The camels and llamas possess two cutting teeth in the upper jaw, and in this respect they differ from the true ruminants, as also in some internal features.

The grinding teeth are six on each side of the jaw, and are composed of alternate convolutions of enamel, dentine and cement, which wear unequally by the lateral motion of grinding, and so form the necessary inequality of surface.

The centre metacarpal bones in the Ruminantia are fused into one common bone, except in the deerlets, which also have the two outer fore and little finger metacarpals distinct, whereas they are but rudimentary in the rest of the true ruminants, and totally absent in the camels.

The following is the cla.s.sification at present adopted: SUB-ORDER _Ruminantia_, containing two sections, viz. True Ruminants and the Camels (_Tylopoda_). SECTION _True Ruminants_, containing two divisions, viz. Horned Ruminants and Hornless Ruminants, such as the chevrotians or deerlets (_Tragulidae_). DIVISION Horned Ruminants, containing two groups, viz. Hollow-horned Ruminants (_Bovidae_), and Solid-horned Ruminants (_Cervidae_). The deerlets possess no psalterium or third stomach, except in a rudimentary form, and their feet approximate to those of the pigs, and they are dest.i.tute of horns.

The hollow-horned ruminants are those which bear a persistent sheath of horn on a bony core; the others bear solid antlers which are periodically shed, and grow afresh.

FAMILY BOVIDAE--HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS.

In these there is an elongated process of bone on the frontals, termed the "horn cores," which are covered with a h.o.r.n.y sheath which is never shed, but continues to grow till full adult life, and probably whilst life lasts, the growth being from the base. In some of these the females are horned, but the majority are hornless. These have all the typical organs of rumination and digestion, and they consist of the goats, sheep, antelope, oxen, and buffalos.

SUB-FAMILY CAPRINAE--GOATS AND SHEEP.

These are noted for having, as a general rule, horns in both s.e.xes, though of varying quality; they are usually compressed, triangular, rugose, with transverse ridges, and curving backwards or spirally; no canines. Feet pits in some; sub-orbital gland small or absent.

_GENUS OVIS--THE SHEEP_.